The World Health Organization on Thursday announced it would
establish an emergency committee of
external experts to advise it on the extraordinary Zika virus outbreak sweeping
through the Americas.

The agency’s director general, Dr. Margaret Chan, announced the
decision during a special session on the outbreak at the WHO’s
annual executive board meeting.

“The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty.
Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly,” Chan
said.

Global health experts have been calling on Chan to
convene an emergency committee on the Zika virus situation, which
is suspected of being responsible for a surge in babies born
with abnormally small brains — a condition called
microcephaly — reported by Brazil. The country’s health
ministry estimates there has been 4,180 cases
of microcephaly there since last October.

The expert group, which will meet for the first time on Monday,
will be asked for advice on the appropriate level of
international concern, Chan said. The committee will also be
asked to recommend measures that affected countries should take,
and to draw up a list of research priorities. Chan did not say
who would be named to the committee.

The power to set up an emergency committee comes from the
International Health Regulations, a treaty that binds WHO member
states. Emergency committees have the power to advise the WHO
director general to declare that a health threat is a public
health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, if it deems
the situation severe enough to merit it.

Chan said the WHO is deeply concerned about the Zika virus
situation, listing four reasons: its suspected link to birth defects and to
neurological symptoms in some people infected; the possibility
for additional geographic spread; the general lack of immunity to
the virus; and the fact that drugs, vaccines and rapid diagnostic
tests don’t exist. She also said this year’s El Niño weather
pattern is expected to increase mosquito populations.

“The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly
changed the risk profile of Zika, from a mild threat to one of
alarming proportions. The increased incidence of microcephaly is particularly
alarming, as it places a heart-breaking burden on families and
communities,” the director general said.

This is the fifth time Chan has turned to the emergency committee
mechanism. Earlier emergency committees were convened to advise
on the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, flagging polio eradication
efforts, the Middle East respiratory syndrome or MERS and the
Ebola outbreak in West Africa.